Global Governance of Hazardous Chemicals: Challenges of Multilevel Management

2 Institutional Analysis and the Chemicals Regime

2 Institutional Analysis and the Chemicals Regime Scholars have long studied how states, working with IGOs and NGOs, create, uphold, and expand joint structures addressing environmental issues (Krasner1983; Haas, Keohane, and Levy 1993; Levy, Young, and Zürn 1995; Victor, Raustiala, and Skolnikoff 1998; Breitmeier, Young, and Zürn 2006; Young, King, and Schroeder 2008). Regimes establish common standards for behavior and specify obligations that all parties within a particular issue area are expected to meet. As such, regimes can be important for enhancing transparency and increasing the political costs of particular environmentally destructive activities (DeSombre 2006). Recently institutional analysis has addressed issues related to linkages among different governance structures (Stokke 2001; Young 2002; H. Selin and VanDeveer 2003; Raustiala and Victor 2004; Oberthür and Gehring 2006; Chambers 2008; Young, King, and Schroeder 2008). As policies have been expanded within and across political forums addressing hazardous chemicals, the development and performance of one policy instrument or management effort may have significant impacts on policy processes and outcomes in other chemicals forums. This study of the development of the chemicals regime draws heavily from the “new institutionalism” literature, which has become influential across multiple social science disciplines and scholarly fields (March and Olsen 1989). In short, this literature examines how social structures consisting of particular norms, rules, and decision-making practices shape actors’ behavior and policy making. Within the broad literature on new institutionalism, this analysis shares many basic assumptions and approaches of researchers applying a “social-practices perspective” and a “knowledge-action perspective” (Young 2008a, 8–9). The social-practices perspective stresses that actors’ interests and preferences are at least 22 Chapter 2 partly shaped through interaction and that social structures over time determine what is considered appropriate behavior. The knowledge-action perspective adds to this by arguing that leadership by actors together with social structures influence how environmental issues are understood and conceptualized, shaping discourses as well as policy processes and outcomes. Combining arguments from the social-practices and the knowledgeaction perspectives, this chapter presents a framework for analyzing the creation and implementation of the chemicals regime. This framework examines the relationship between structures and agents in international politics, drivers of policy expansions, and characteristics of institutional linkages and multilevel governance. The chapter begins with a discussion about institutions and participants in regime development, briefly describing the many roles of states, IGOs, and NGOs working on the management hazardous of chemicals. The next section addresses important characteristics of institutional linkages and multilevel governance issues, with a focus on policy making and management of hazardous chemicals. This is followed by brief summary of the principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures of the chemicals regime. The chapter ends with a discussion of regimes and science-policy interplay issues. Institutions and Regime Participants Institutional analysis requires a clear distinction between regimes that are social structures guiding the behavior of stakeholders but possess no independent ability to act, and the regime participants (states, IGOs, and NGOs) that make decisions and drive policy developments, thereby creating and upholding social structures (Young 1989, 2002, 2008a; H. Selin and VanDeveer 2003). Therefore, regime analysis should distinguish between structures and agents as well as empirically explore their relationships . In short, institutions function as guiding means as states, IGOs, and NGOs communicate with others, justify actions, and pursue goals. At the same time, regime participants establish, reinforce, and challenge institutions through their continuous behavior and interactions, as they frequently refer to broader social orders when making choices (Kratochwil 1989). Institutional Analysis and the Chemicals Regime 23 Institutions are socially created structures, or “persistent and connected sets of rules and practices that prescribe behavioral roles, constrain activity, and shape expectations” (Keohane 1989, 3). In other words, institutions function as constituting and guiding social forces by defining acceptable or legitimate behavior (Young 2002, 2008a, 2008b). In these ways, international institutions regularly affect the behavior of regime participants, policy outcomes, and management efforts. Regimes, as issue -specific institutions, define acceptable behavior and shape perceptions within a particular policy area. The process by which issues become aggregated into a distinct issue area and the continuous development of that issue area follows no predetermined pattern, but is an important aspect of regime formation and operation (E. Haas 1980, Kratochwil 1993). An international regime is commonly defined in the international relations literature as consisting of “sets of implicit and explicit principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures around which actors...